A biography is the real story of a person’s life, written by someone else other than that person. A good biography brings the person to life in the book, and explains all the interesting and significant events in their life, in an entertaining and engaging manner.
Here are 5 ways to write a biography:
1. Choose the Subject Carefully
The person you decide to write about is the main character in the story, so choose persons with eventful, complex life histories. You don’t have to select celebrities or notable figures necessarily. Many ‘ordinary’ people do make significant contributions during their lifetimes, like scientists, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs. Others might have very colorful and unusual lives worth writing about.
Make a list of all the people who interest you, and whose life details you can get access to. Then decide which one you can really connect or sympathize with, or whose story really moves you. If you don’t feel a connection, an attachment or an admiration for the person you are writing about, it will show in your book.
2. Do the Research
It might be easier to write about someone whose life has been well-chronicled, so that you can get access to all the key details of their life. On the other hand, you can also get firsthand information from the person directly if living, or from close friends or relatives, if the details are not publicly available.
Read up on any books or articles written by or about the subject. Search out any interviews or public speeches if available. Whenever possible, conduct interviews with various persons associated with the subject, who can describe key events and incidents in the subject’s life from different perspectives. Even if all the necessary details are available to you, interviews are an important tool, and can make your subject’s story come alive.
3. Analyze the Information
Go through all the information you gathered, and look for patterns that are unique to this person. Arrange the data by timeline, and analyze how some events shaped the subject’s life and led to significant changes. Find out what shaped his/her future, what decided the life voyage the subject embarked on, and how he/she overcame obstacles on this path.
4. Arrange the Information
Think about how you want to narrate the subject’s life. Decide whether to arrange the biographical data in a chronological manner or write them based on the accomplishments. You can decide to focus on key events or accomplishments, and describe how or what led the subject to them. Recounting the biography by main phases of the person’s life is another approach. Also, you can decide on a theme or thesis statement that best fits the person’s life, and plan to arrange the content around it.
5. Write the Narrative
The biography must read like a story. Do not just state facts in a dry and boring manner. Describe them in an entertaining narrative, using unusual facts or experiences in the subject’s life to keep it interesting. While you can use your opinions and feelings about the subject to shape the narrative, do not go overboard with admiration or criticism. Choose an intriguing title to summarize the person’s life, rather than just use the person’s name. Overall, make the story flow well, so that readers remain curious and interested to learn more about the subject’s life.
Image credit: Maureen Didde on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0
CS Rajan is a freelance writer who loves to write on various topics, and is currently working on her first novel.